Sanctuary(80)

"I didn't think you did. Love her."

"I did." Sam picked up his coffee again. All the talk had dried out his throat. "It took me a lot of years of being without her to stop loving her. Maybe I did push her away, but I don't know how. The not knowing ate at me bad for a lot of years."

"I'm sorry." He saw the flicker of surprise in his father's eyes. "I didn't think it mattered to you. I didn't think any of it really mattered."

"It mattered. But after a while you learn to live with what you've got.

"And you had the island."

"It was what I could depend on, what I could tend to. And it kept me from losing my mind." He took a deep breath. "But a better man would have been around to hold his son's head when he puked up too much Budweiser."

"Christ, an import? No wonder I don't understand you."

Sam sighed and took a long look at the man his son had become. A man who wore an apron to work and baked pies. A man, be corrected, with cool and steady eyes, and shoulders strong and broad enough to carry more than his own load.

"We've both had our say, and I don't know as it'll make any difference. But I'm glad we said it." Sam held out a hand and hoped it was the right thing.

Jo walked in on the surprising tableau of her father and brother shaking hands in front of the stove. They both looked at her, identical flickers of embarrassment on their faces. just then she was too damn tired and irritable to analyze it.

"Lex isn't feeling well. I'll be taking her breakfast shift."

Brian grabbed a kitchen fork and hurriedly scooted the sausage around before it burned. "You're going to wait tables?"

"That's what I said." she grabbed a short apron from a peg and tied it on.

"When's the last time you waited tables?" Brian demanded.

"The last time I was here and you were short-staffed."

"You're a lousy waitress."

"Well, I'm all you've got, pal. Lexy's got a crying 'ag headache, and Kate's heading over to the campground to straighten out the mess there. So live with it."

Sam picked up his cap and edged toward the door. Dealing with his son was one thing, and that had been hard enough. He wasn't about to take on a daughter in the same day. "I've got things to do," he muttered and nearly winced when Jo shot him a killing look.

"Well, so do I, but I'm waiting tables because the two of you decided to go at each other and Kate and I had to spend half the damn night listening to Lexy cry and carry on. Now the two of you, I see, have shaken hands like real men, so everything's fine and dandy. Where are the damn order pads?"

"Top drawer, under the cash register." Out of the corner of his eye, Brian saw his father slip out the door. Typical, he thought grimly, and drained the sausage. "The computer's new," he told Jo. "You ever work a cash register computer?"

"Why the hell would I? I'm not a sales clerk, I'm not a waitress. I'm a goddamn photographer."

Brian rubbed the back of his neck. It was going to be a long morning. "Go up and pour some aspirin down Lexy's throat and get her down here."

"You want her, you get her. I've had more than my fill of Lexy and her drama queen routine. she was wallowing in it." Jo slapped the pad down on the counter and stalked to the coffeepot. "Center of attention, as always."

"she was upset."

"Maybe she was, until she began to enjoy the role, but it wasn't my fault. And I'm the one who was stuck with her. It was after two before Kate and I got her calmed down and out of my room. Now she's the one who claims to have a headache." Jo rubbed hard at the center of her forehead. "Any aspirin down here?"

Brian took a bottle from a cupboard and set it on the counter. "Take the pot in and make the first rounds. Blueberry pancakes are the special. If you have to scowl, scowl in here. Out there you smile. Tell the customers your name and pretend you can be personable. It should offset the slow service."

"Kiss my ass," she snarled but grabbed the pot and the pad and swung through the door.

It didn't get any better.

Brian was slicing a grapefruit and grinding his teeth at the two orders that had been sitting under the warming light for a full five minUtes. Another two, he thought, and he'd have to dump them and start again.

Where the hell was Jo?

"Busy morning." Nathan breezed in the back door. "I got a glimpse of the dining room through the windows. Looks like a pretty full house."

"Sunday morning." Brian flipped what he thought must have been the millionth pancake of the day. "People like a big breakfast on Sundays."

"Me, too." Nathan grinned at the grill. "Blueberry pancakes sound perfect."